“You better take the long way to see it through / Don’t care about the wrong way, got better things to do.” The line lands early in “Long Way,” and it sticks there, not as a slogan but as a workaround—something you tell yourself when forward motion keeps collapsing under its own weight.
That push and pull sits at the center of “Start/Stop,” the new EP from Baltimore’s Still Bones, out April 3, 2026, with “Long Way” arriving March 6 alongside a video. Three songs, all moving fast, all circling the same stuck point: wanting to do something, not knowing what that something is supposed to be.
John Gamble has been around the city’s DIY circuit for more than a decade, long enough to feel both the payoff and the drag. “I want to rebel, but I have no idea how I could do anything that would be meaningful,” he says. “There’s a lot of fucked up shit going on. That’s where a lot of the EP comes from.” The feeling isn’t dressed up. It isn’t resolved either. “If anyone figures out how to avoid collapsing into nihilism, let me know. I don’t feel like Start/Stop is meant to offer anything in particular; just poking at the existential malaise that a lot of people feel.”
Still Bones began during lockdown as a solo outlet, a way to finally organize years of scraps and half-finished ideas. That first record, “Dopeful” (2021)—a word Gamble coined to describe a naive optimism—was written and performed by him, aside from drums. It worked, but it wasn’t the point. “I definitely prefer being in a band,” he says. “Four heads truly are better than one.” The songs from that era have already shifted in practice: “The way we play those old songs now is different from the recordings, for the better for sure.”
The period after “Dopeful” didn’t settle immediately. A rotating cast of fill-in drummers, two singles—“Little Luck” in 2024 and “Remind Me Tomorrow” in 2025—still felt pieced together. “Start/Stop” is the first release that locks in the current lineup: Gamble with Jake Butler (bass), Ethan Salem (guitar), and Vinnie Burke (drums). “I’m really proud of the songs on Start/Stop because they’re probably the most collaborative Still Bones songs to date.”
That collaboration shows up in how the record was made. It was tracked at Butler’s Stüd Ranch in Frederick, Maryland, with Will Yip on mastering.
Most of it was recorded live, no click, minimal second-guessing. “Over the past couple years I’ve felt our live show getting more aggressive and tracking live—without a click—seemed like a good way to capture that energy,” Gamble says. “We didn’t want to overthink it, so we played through each song 3 times and took the best take for each. They’re not perfect, but they’re real.” The imperfections stayed: “There are some specific imperfections, like feedback and accidental harmonics, that I love and probably couldn’t recreate if we tried.”
The shift from solo project to band didn’t just change the sound—it changed what the project is allowed to be. “The biggest change was getting that joy back, the joy of having a steady creative outlet,” Gamble says. “Still Bones was never meant to be a solo project.” Writing and playing together outweighs everything else. “Recording is fun but nothing beats writing songs and playing shows together—supporting the scene and building community.”
Each member leaves a fingerprint on the songs. Gamble breaks it down plainly: “Jake brings grunge and stoner/acid rock vibes, Vinnie brings punk vibes and a double kick (a first for me), and Ethan brings pop punk and post-hardcore vibes.” The fun part is tracing it after the fact. “It’s really fun to look back on a finished song and identify who informed each twist and turn (or stop and start).”
That sense of shared ownership carries into how he thinks about listeners, too. “I firmly believe that when you consume any art, your own lived experience colors the way you view it—there’s no wrong way to interpret art.” He tends to connect through the music before the words anyway. “Songs usually grab me because of the instrumentation (sick riffs) rather than the lyrics, at least initially.” Ambiguity matters. “I especially appreciate lyrics that have ambiguity and allow me to create my own unique relationship with the song. I would love it if anyone had that kind of relationship with a Still Bones song.”
The three tracks move quickly but cover different ground. “Long Way” was written with constraint in mind. “Long Way was my first attempt to deliberately write a short song (under 3 minutes is short to me lol). Ultimately my goal with keeping it relatively short was to leave the listener wanting more.” It flips between calm and surge. “I love the juxtaposition of the vibey parts to the energetic and aggressive parts.” It also holds up live. “This is probably my favorite Still Bones song to play live.”
“Square Root of All Evil” starts from Butler’s riff. “Jake showed me the main riff for Square Root of All Evil and I loved the gritty dissonance and the uneasy feeling that the weird time signature brings, yet it still has a nice bounce to it.” The tension carries into the vocals. “The lyrics are angry and despondent but the chorus melody is pretty poppy, complete with whoa-oh-oh-ohs.”
“Rocks Tonic Flag Eagle” drops any subtlety. “Rocks Tonic Flag Eagle is probably the most on-the-nose Still Bones song. I mean, it doesn’t get more obvious than, ‘fuck this american dream.’ I guess sometimes nuance is overrated, and it just felt right for the folk punk vibe.” It starts acoustic, then builds into something heavier, Gamble pushing the line until it breaks.
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Baltimore shapes all of this, even when it isn’t named directly in the songs. Gamble talks about the scene with the kind of attachment that makes leaving feel unlikely. “I love the music scene in Baltimore. Sometimes I dream about moving to a new place, but I think I’d miss this scene too much.” Big tours often skip the city for DC or Philly, which changes the ecosystem. “It’s also kinda cool because it creates a scene with a heavier focus on small and mid-sized bands/tours.”
Venues come and go. Some important ones have shut down in recent years. “But that stuff is cyclical and new venues will pop up to replace them.” The core isn’t tied to a room anyway. “A scene is more about the people and bands in it rather than any specific venue(s) anyway, and the people in the Baltimore scene are great.” There are anchors—Ottobar, Metro Baltimore—but also smaller spots that keep things close: The Undercroft, a volunteer-run, all-ages space in a church basement; Wax Atlas, a record store; Holy Frijoles, a Mexican restaurant that doubles as a hub for hardcore shows. Sidebar is in the process of being brought back, with Feed The Scene working on the space.
Those mixed bills—emo, punk, hardcore sharing the same room—have fed back into the band’s direction. “We’ve been lucky to be on some ‘mixed bills’ with hardcore bands, which is really cool and possibly why our sound has gotten a little more aggressive.”
“Shoutout BALTIMORE SHOWPLACE for keeping track of literally every show in the area. Having this info organized makes DIY booking and engaging with the scene so much easier.”
For all the frustration running through “Start/Stop,” Gamble keeps coming back to the same place: a room, other people, the shared recognition that nobody has it figured out. “I’m going through life and everything keeps getting worse,” he says.
“And I don’t know what to do about it. Maybe it doesn’t turn the corner, and doesn’t get hopeful, but the idea that everyone’s commiserating together, that we’re building this sense that we all feel the same way and we’re not alone, I think that’s beautiful. When you’re playing a show in a room for those people that feel the same way you do, that’s special.”
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